Send and receive Text / SMS / MMS messages from your computer with the Messages web app by Google. Requires an Android mobile phone and setting Google Messages as the default text messaging app if it not already. Samsung and some other phones come with their own text messaging app set as default but it easy to switch to others or back if you prefer.
Works with Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, or Microsoft Edge. It is not available on Internet Explorer.
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Get Google Messages in the Play Store
Setup and use:
https://support.google.com/web
Get more information
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Note: Your latest conversation threads, contacts, and other settings will be encrypted and cached on your web browser. You can signout or if you don’t use your Messages account for 14 days, you’ll automatically be signed out for security reasons.
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RCS stands for Rich Communication Services and the best way to describe it is to say it can make regular texting more like Hangours, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
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It’s not available everywhere — Google is trialing things in the UK and France and there is no word on when to expect an expanded rollout.
There are a few things that you’ll want to understand along the privacy front, though.
Encryption — RCS messages are not end-to-end encrypted. Messages are encrypted during transit from you to a service provider (whether it be Google or a carrier) and from the provider to the destination, but the provider does have access. Google says messages will be deleted once they are received, but attachments may be held until all recipients have downloaded them. End-to-end encryption is something that can be added to RCS, but until that happens, you need to know that the service provider will have access to your messages.
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Regular SMS messages are not encrypted at all even in transit and are therefore accessible by carriers and susceptible to man in the middle attacks or leaks.
